Horrible game. I mean we went forward a bit more but we were pretty shocking all over. Few players showed sparks and those that did were far from consistent. Our defence was horrendous.


What do you think about the FourFourTwo article Pim: Roos Need To Improve?
SOCCEROOS coach Pim Verbeek has admitted his side still have a way to go to reach their peak after they rounded of their World Cup preparations with a 3-1 loss to the USA on Saturday.

Have your say.

"For me it was a great game, exactly what I was hoping for."

EHHH????

Spot on Tommycash, the defence was shocking, slow and unable to deal with pace from the attacking team. Moore's spot must be under scrutiny now.

Is this all we can expect from Verbeeks socceroos? Or is it just to do with a strenuous week of fitness preparation?
Wasn't everyone saying it doesn't matter if we play ugly to get to the world cup? I understood this to mean we will play differently at the world cup. However this isn't going to happen.
We won't see any of the beautiful football of the 2006 WC and I hope I'm wrong but we won't make it through to the next round.
Crowd figure's have diminished at international matches in Australia, because people don't want to pay money for crap football. Until we get a coach with a bit more ability then this won't change.
As fossie said, its the players who have got us through to the world cup and help carry Australia, majority of which played the last world cup. Verbeek can thank them for making him a successful coach.

Have this strange feeling that Pim will be happy with a loss. Keeping the Aussies as underdogs is when they perform the best. This might give us a better chance of getting a result V Germany.
Though having no decent players up front is a huge worry and will be the aussies downfall.

Defence is our stong point? Not against the US. When the play opened up we looked lost. Hope this performance is a result of heavy training and experimentation. If its not I worry for the WC games.

Nero, man I hope you are right.

This was always going to happen. Verbeek is utterly clueless. Add to that the fact that he hasn't got the balls to drop any of the senior clique (Moore, Grella, Bresciano) and we have a big problem.

He's a C grade coach and always has been. Can't wait for him to go.

Defence has never been our strong point, and our 2006 defence was miles better.

Give those lower level asian teams a half decent striker and we would have come away from games against Oman, Kuwait etc licking our wounds. They peppered our goal more than all other teams did combined during the 2006 WC.

Oh, and anyone game to bet that Grella doesn't see a red card before the tournament comes to an end?! I'd love to know if theres an actual betting option for that.

I remember watching Aus play Holland in Sydney and the atmosphere was eerily silent. Pim has the team are playing terrible football and the old excuse that its "pragmatic, results-driven and effective" football has gone out the window. The fact is that its shit football and Schwarzer cant save us every time.

Agreed. Grinding out results in asia is a much different kettle of fish to getting through your group stage at a WC.

I really hope the FFA do their homework when selecting our next manager. Hopefully they'll get a manager that uses a style based on the players he has at the helm rather than a manager that has his own style and moulds the team around it.

If Pim's unimpressed with our preparation, maybe he should address his concerns to the coach ... oh ... he is the coach

Too me the biggest concerns are Grella and Moore both are in poor form, Beachamp should have been given some time on the park. I fear Grella will get sent off in the WC.

It was a bloody awful game. to say we played utter shithouse would be the understatement of the week. It was a shocking performance, and if alarm bells arn't sounding them we're truely fucked, cause if we play like that against the likes of germany and Serbia, we may as well drop our pants, bend over and spread our cheeks. Despite the fact Germany have lost some good players, they still have a bloody good squad and i can see people on this forum are still underestimating them cause they've lost the likes of Ballack. It's gonna be a trout-slap in the face for a few people if we do lose against Germany, and if we play against them like we did the U.S then it's gonna take a miracle to save us.

and the first people to start complaining will be those who have sat back and said "it's only a friendly, don't worry about it". It wouldnt matter too much if the world cup was a handful of months down the track, next year even, however wake up and smell the coffee people, the world cup starts next week, pim has less then 7 days to fix the problems. He's shown he's not really willing to change the squad that much, so it's going to be interesting to see how we go.

Grella & Moore, more so Moore. Should not have been picked. Grella due to injury and Moore, no playing regular Football at a club level. Was this not one of the previsos from Pim as to picking players.

Grella makes the takles he does because he is not match fit. Or just not fit.

Still, I hope Pim is right and I am wrong.

I thought the influence of the Dutch was meant to improve our quality of football:?,
The way we are playing is quite the opposite

Gettin sick of all this altitude bullshit. What a piss poor excuse.

pim has been in charge for so long yet we still havnt reached our peak and the world cup is less than a week away.

wtf have you been doing all this time.

I don't care about the result, but the performance was awful.

Grella was very ordinary all game. Valeri should come in for him.

And Garcia was very innefective as well. Vidosic in for him.

Pretty much, maybe I'm expecting too much, but that was dead-set painful. They thrashed us, but the scoreline was more 'solid win'.

I hope Emerton makes a miracle recovery by kick off for Germany, Garcia is trying, but he never looks threatening.

See the thing is???? we dont have the players to play beautiful one-touch, attacking football, we are not Spain or Brazil, also Pim inst Guus, jezz these people!!!

I am getting tired of reading comments by people who have never been coaches or referees, I doubt any of them would do any better. We are an OK side and that is OK. We will not win the world cup but neither will Mexico, Slovenia,Japan or Honduras, does this make them rubbish teams? of course not, Australia is playing at about the level I expect of them. Denmark have renewed Olsens contract for getting them too the WC unlike 200 others who didn't, Denmark know their level and are happy with it, as should we be.

In that case maybe you should stick to reading the articles and not the comments. Forums are for the free exchange of information and ideas. Also I didn't realise you needed to attach your resume to your user profile.

I think most fans are frustrated that the Aust team has potential that our tactical 'system' doesn't allow to be realised. Lets face it, USA knew exactly how we would play before the first ball was kicked and then went about giving Pim a lesson in tactical adaptability. If Pim cops some flak from fans for that then good. Hopefully he'll read the comments himself.

Well said. The squad selection, formation, and in game adjustments are the managers responsibility. Its every fans duty to put the heat on the manager when he royally screws up.

Unfortunately last night's game was disappointing. Not just the result ( which we were lucky wasn't 4 - 1, 5 - 2 or 6 - 3 ) but also the performance. Tim Cahill has been off the boil since the EPL season finished for some reason, he will come good. Garcia tried but gave us nothing, Moore was caught out badly several times, Culina doesn't do it as an attacking midfielder any more, Grella wasn't his usual safe self, Bresciano did nothing, Kennedy & Schwarzer looked lost. Kennedy was particularly disappointing, though I suspect it was due to couple of reasons. Schwarzer looks scared to come off his line for crosses & corners.

Reasons for the above - I think the Jubalani balls in altitude, the chopped up pitch surface & general tiredness from training, combined with rustiness of some of our players who haven't been playing recently are all contributing factors.

Craig Moore should be the back up defender, not starting centre back FFS.

Adidas have some answering to do because nobody wants to watch experienced international players who can't manage to pass the ball properly to a team mate or get a reasonable number of their shots on target. It could ruin the World Cup as a spectacle, I hope it doesn't for football fans all over the world. We want to marvel at the players skill, not throw things at out televisions.

All of the above made it one of the most frustrating matches I have sat through in recent times.

he means he's been vindicated in his belief that playing defensively is the best this squad can do.

Hey Heineken
On your post you said in reference to the Socceroos
"....may as well drop our pants, bend over and spread our cheeks."
Please confine the activities that you regularly practice to yourself and not propose that the Socceroos should involve themselves in the abominable act of buggary.

I am concerned that some of the fringe players i.e. Valeri and Jedi, have overtaken the tried and tested, but Pim may not realise this until after the World Cup, or not at all....

Pim might be a high level coach, but he has no development skills. He has not blooded one new player to this 1st team.
I bet if Viduka was still around eating 10 pies a day and walking not running he would be in the team right now.
The next coach better have some skills at blooding new players.

all i can say is a repeat of what i have said many times before our forward line isnt our biggest problem cos we never bar viduca had a striker that coul actually score goals for us . Our problem is our def and mid field ,moore to slow and absolutley lost ,neil strong able but to slow ,chippers gun, wilko always out of pos, grella frustrated with himself, culina not bad, bresh turns over posesion to much , cahill cant do it himself ,garcia lost but quick, kennedy no control ,cant hold up the ball ,cant shoot for shit, and thats right we have him there as an arial threat but cant even head into open goals ,everyone else pim thinks arent good enough to start but on occasion have out peformed our starters. all i can say is i am an aussie supporter to the last whistle and im 95 percent certain it will be after the gahna game . Pim is the one and only person to blame for this . oh yes and the FFA for selecting him as coach............